Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Blue Army Shrine, Ashbury, NJ
108th Anniversary Celebration of the Sixth Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima
Votive Mass of Our Lady of Fatima
October 13, 2025
Jud 13:17-20.15:9, Lk 1:46-55, Lk 11:27-28
 
To watch a video of the homily (and of the Mass in which it took place), please click below:

 
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.13.25_Homily_on_Our_Lady_of_Fatima_Hope_and_Consecration_1.mp3
 
The following text guided the homily: 
Today’s celebration of the culmination of Our Lady’s Apparitions in Fatima and the great Miracle of the Sun is unlike any other in Church history, because it is taking place in the first Jubilee of Hope in ecclesiastical annals. And like any Church holy year, it’s meant to influence everything the Church does during that time. And the theme of hope has a great deal to do with what Mary said and did and tried to provoke all of us to do 108 years ago in Fatima.
What Hope Is
What is hope? When Pope Francis gave us his Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee of Hope, he didn’t define what hope is, because he said, everyone already has an idea of what it is. When Pope Benedict published his encyclical on hope in 2007, he likewise did not give us a clear definition of hope, but he did give us a very important clue. Quoting St. Paul who in his letter to the first Christians in Ephesus reminded them that before the Gospel arrived in their famous city, they were “living without hope” because they were “living without God in the world” (Eph 2:14), Pope Benedict implied that hope is precisely “living with God in the world.” We know that this is true. Everything changes when we know that Christ is with us. Think about any challenge you’re facing now, or any major challenge you have faced in life, if you could see Jesus present with you, if you would hear him whispering into your ears or your heart, “Don’t be afraid. I am with you. We will meet this challenge together. Remember, nothing is impossible for God,” would we not be filled with enormous hope that that challenge won’t have the last word? St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, who built an empire of hope for Italian immigrants in New York City and then spread hope in 67 missions in 11 different countries, did it all based by echoing the hope St. Paul’s gave witness to in his Letter to the Philippians: “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (4:13). To recognize that God-with-us, Emmanuel, is still very much with us, and that he can strengthen us to do even the humanly impossible, that with faith in him the size of a mustard seed we can even transplant mountain ranges, we are filled with hope not matter how tall those mountains seem to be.
The Hope Mary Gave the Shepherd Children
This is something Our Lady came to teach us in Fatima in summoning us to consecrate ourselves to her Immaculate Heart. I’ve always been blown away by what Mary taught the three young shepherd children, 7-year-old Jacinta, 9-year-old Francisco and 10-year-old Lucia. She had shown them a vision of hell where poor sinners go. She had given them a glimpse of the destruction that would come from atheistic communism. She had even permitted them to see how much the Church would suffer, with a vast city of Christian corpses and even a bishop in white assassinated.
After these vision, Mary said to them, “You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go,” a clear indication that Hell is a real possibility of human freedom and doesn’t seem to be empty. “To save them, God wishes…,” she continued, and told them about a specific practice. I think it’s worthwhile to pause to consider what we think would have be...